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Justice Department to propose limiting internet firms’ Section 230 protections

wsj.com

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Re: Justice Department to propose limiting internet firms’ Section 230 protections

#51

Post by throwaway98797 »

save_ferris wrote: post #18
philistine wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Investors don’t want to touch Zuckerberg because they simply cannot. He has enough shares to be unremovable.

I don’t believe this is true. If an Icahn-like activist investor shorted FB and successfully triggered a mass sell off tanking FB stock, it would be really hard for Zuckerberg to survive that pressure, and he’d be financially incentivized not to. You’re right in that the board doesn’t have the power to oust him, but collective investor action could. It’s hard to find people who want to rattle one of the most consiste…

Do you think zuck cares if he’s worth 100b vs 20b?

Re: Justice Department to propose limiting internet firms’ Section 230 protections

#52

Post by [deleted] »

akersten wrote: post #40
0134340 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really, even though the platform you're using voluntarily chooses what you're allowed to post, as with almost all online platforms? Besides that, you're framing this wrong. If I host a platform as I host you in my house, I have a right and a duty to make sure you aren't committing illegal actions within my domain. This is a fairly universal law, written and unwritten, that who and what you host in your domain is your…

I'm pretty sure the argument "if you invite someone into your house, you're responsible for their illegal actions" is plainly incorrect, but I'd be happy to see a citation of that statute.

[deleted]

Re: Justice Department to propose limiting internet firms’ Section 230 protections

#53

Post by ooobit2 »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #44

Be careful of what you ask for. Section 230 exists because the courts punished Prodigy because they tried to moderate their forums but did it imperfectly, but didn't punish CompuServe because they let anything go. The idea is to allow imperfect moderation in addition to both zero and perfect moderation. The internet without section 230 isn't a bastion of internet freedom. It's 4chan and 8chan. It's a shithole.

[flagged]

Re: Justice Department to propose limiting internet firms’ Section 230 protections

#55

Post by gfxgirl »

belltaco wrote: post #34
vnchr wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Internet platforms maintain control over their system whereas gun manufacturers give away control to gun buyers. The gun manufacturer ceases to maintain control and cannot be assigned responsibility after the sale of the good.

So I guess the same logic applies to the phone companies for calls and texts, since they maintain control over it?

I don't know what the right answer is but as far as analogies go the phone companies don't decide which calls you get and which of your incoming calls/texts to make a priority.

Twitter and certainly Facebook do run algorithms that decide which of the 300 things the 1000 people you friended or follow should be displayed and in what order so they get decide what to emphasize as important by deciding what you see first and even what you see at all.

In order to be the same as the phone company they'd have to give you the entire feed of every person you follow in chronological order, no filtering.

I suppose one solution for them. They could default to no filtering and let users turn on filters. Then it would be the user's choosing the filters, not them. I'm not sure what scrutiny the filters themselves would need.

A simple filter like "show nothing with the word 'poop' in it" would seem safe. A complex filter like "let this ML algo decide for me" I have no idea.

Re: Justice Department to propose limiting internet firms’ Section 230 protections

#56

Post by jimbob45 »

BelleOfTheBall wrote: post #4

Ah, seeking to mess with Section 230 again, just like with the EARN It Act. Any company that stays headquartered in the USA if this passes is just begging for trouble.

The GDPR was objectively far more consequential and I don’t recall a mass exodus of companies from the EU.

Re: Justice Department to propose limiting internet firms’ Section 230 protections

#57

Post by GoblinSlayer »

throwawaygh wrote: post #28

I'm generally sympathetic to the idea that Section 230 protections should come with some sort of obligation to allow free speech. However, the actual policy proposals for replacing Section 230 are all outright dystopian. Josh Hawley, in particular, is NOT a free speech advocate. His problem with Facebook/Tiwtter is perceived liberal bias, and the alternatives to Section 230 that he suggests are 100% about wrestling e…

A politically-appointed board won't do stellar moderation, but it sure will prevent the worst form of moderation that CEOs do.

Re: Justice Department to propose limiting internet firms’ Section 230 protections

#58

Post by tw04 »

vorpalhex wrote: post #50
tw04 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It literally is about Trump being angry that Twitter fact checked his outright lies about mail-in voting. There are absolutely other powers that stand to benefit, or are pushing the agenda as well, but to claim it's not a result of Trump's hissy fit is ridiculous. https://deadline.com/2020/05/donald-trump-twitter-social-med... The executive order was signed by exactly one individual who was completely open about why…

This was being proposed by Barr and co a few months ago, the current Twitter debacle (A tweetacle? Tweetgate?) just happens to be an excellent case to push it forward with support. Before that it was proposed repeatedly by several Democrats, especially during the Birther nonsense.

I guess it's a good thing I already said other parties had an interest in the topic at hand.

Unless you know something I don't, Barr doesn't have the power to sign an executive order. Neither do any of the Democrats. There's exactly 1 reason the executive order was signed and it wasn't Democrats or Barr, nothing I stated was inaccurate. Appreciate the downvote because you don't like reality.

Re: Justice Department to propose limiting internet firms’ Section 230 protections

#59

Post by throwaway894345 »

belltaco wrote: post #34
vnchr wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Internet platforms maintain control over their system whereas gun manufacturers give away control to gun buyers. The gun manufacturer ceases to maintain control and cannot be assigned responsibility after the sale of the good.

So I guess the same logic applies to the phone companies for calls and texts, since they maintain control over it?

The problem is that right now these big Internet companies aren't "dumb pipes" like phone companies--they are moderating content already, so either they shouldn't moderate at all or they should accept responsibility for how they moderate. If they're making money by persecuting certain groups or enabling child porn or whatever, they should be held accountable. If they're just dumb pipes, then that's fine, but they mustn't moderate content.

Re: Justice Department to propose limiting internet firms’ Section 230 protections

#60

Post by sobani »

seemslegit wrote: post #41
Communitivity wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have not, and never claimed I did. I said it looks good on paper. A number of sources have said it is startup friendly. If the EU's laws are so burdensome, why is there a thriving startup ecosystem in the EU? I have read about EU's stances on hate speech, defamation, and libel (though I wouldn't call that hobby reading research), and I am fine with their stances. I think we could use more hate speech protection, wh…

> If the EU's laws are so burdensome, why is there a thriving startup ecosystem in the EU? I have read about EU's stances on hate speech, defamation, and libel (though I wouldn't call that hobby reading research), and I am fine with their stances. There is nothing particularly thriving about it. There are just a lot of them because it costs almost nothing to incorporate a company and 'startup' sounds cooler than a 's…

> Can you name many EU startups that IPOd or got acquired for an impressive amount during the last decade or were even considered "unicorns" at any point by anyone other than themselves?

You mean besides companies like Spotify, Rovio (Angry Birds) or Mojang (Minecraft)?

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